AT LEAST ONE HALF of the Twin Towers isn’t ready to hang them up just yet.
Despite suffering through an injury-riddled season, seasoned Cavs forward Wanda Agard-Belgrave said she would love nothing better than to return next year, even after her Cavaliers recaptured the women’s basketball’s league title.
The 35-year-old national veteran expressed the sentiment following Tuesday’s 71-58 close-out victory over UWI Blackbirds at the Wildey Gym, where the Cavs captured their 11th title in 13 years.
“Right now I don’t want to call it quits but my knees are bad so Dr [Llewellyn] Harper will have the final say on it,” said Agard-Belgrave candidly.
“Whatever Dr Harper says is what will go because I’ve been plagued with injuries the whole season.”
It’s the daunting reality facing one of the game’s all-time greats as the prolific forward/centre suffered through an up-and-down season while playing the entire year without injured national forward Astrid Alleyne.
“We always had Astrid in our ears, even if she wasn’t a presence on the court she was always there,” she laughed.
A former standout player at Pace University, Agard-Belgrave has established herself as the great post player of her generation while leading several national teams – the best of which copped the Caribbean Basketball Championship in 2000.
Even at age 35 with two banged-up knees, Agard-Belgrave flashed signs of her dominant self while pouring in 30-point performances like the Game 1 effort against Combined Schools Hoopsters in the first round.
But her injuries clearly took their toll as the season went on, especially in the finals where she averaged just nine points over the first two games of the series.
“It’s like getting up on mornings and feeling like 110 though you’re only 35,” said the Coleridge & Parry teacher.
“Some days are good and some days are bad but you just have to keep fighting through.”
It’s exactly what she did for the winner-take-all Game 3, having rebounded from that miserable two-game spell to score 15 points despite clearly hobbling up and down the floor.
And it wasn’t a token performance from a fallen giant either, as Agard-Belgrave scored six crucial points in the decisive fourth quarter, including four straight to spark the game-changing 14-6 run.
However, even if she returns it might not be in the same role as the signs are starting to show a shift away from the once post-dominant side into a more free-flowing offence run by Maria Cumberbatch, Jamila Studer, Tamisha Flatts and Cherise Shepherd.
“The younger ones just have to step because they are the future now so we gave them the chance to step up,” said Agard-Belgrave.
“But I’ve never doubted our team and I will never doubt our team.”